Tech Stocks Ease in Overall Market Fall

Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, August 8, 2011. Stocks tumbled on Monday, the first session after rating agency Standard & Poor's cut the top-tier AAA credit rating of the United States, further unnerving already-skittish investors. Photo: Reuters

Meanwhile, the 30 chip stocks covered in the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index lost 2.5 percent after some smaller chip companies announced deteriorating outlooks. The Nasdaq 100 Technology Index fell 3.7 percent, as did the iShares S&P North America Tech Sector Index.

U.S. stocks slid overall amid concern that the European debt crisis is deepening and French banks may be overexposed.

The biggest U.S. tech companies have major European customers and contracts and were not immune. IBM and Hewlett-Packard, the two biggest computer service companies, dropped 5.5 percent and 5.3 percent, respectively. Both computer giants derive as much as 30 percent of sales from Europe.